Review: The Shaggy Dog

There is a moment in Joe Dante's neato kitsch comedy, Matinee, when Cold War kids Gene
(Simon Fenton) and Dennis (Jesse
Lee) are sitting in a movie theater, bored silly by the zany (and entirely fictional) body-switching family comedy,
The Shook-Up Shopping Cart (a double bill with the equally non-existent The Bashful Bobcat). It was Dante's way of simultaneously mocking and paying tribute
to the low-concept filler that Disney made in between what are now the company's enduring classics, and it was a
hilarious moment.

While Disney's remake of their 1959 mega-hit, The Shaggy Dog, is
not loaded with hilarious moments, it is, as they say, what it is, even if it is that same sort of self-congratulatory
jape. Tim Allen plays a dog-hating lawyer who by convenient magic becomes
one, makes a fun enough show of it, rolling together nicely the parts played by Tommy Kirk in the original and Dean
Jones in the 1976 sequel, The Shaggy
D.A. Like My Three
Sons star Fred MacMurray in the original, Allen is a Disney
contract player, and while he may not be the fatherly comfort that the MacMurray was, he can certainly sell a movie in
the same way. People know Tim Allen from Home Improvement; they know him as the voice of Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story movies; they know him
from The Santa Clause, and that
is all the selling/warning that most people need.

Not so much predictable as he is dependable, Allen makes the best out of what seems to have become his lot in
life, despite his attempts to break out with other grown-up and non-Disney projects. MacMurray had his run, making
seven films for Disney between 1959 and 1973. Dean Jones, who first allied with Disney for 1965's That Darn Cat!, stayed on through
remakes of it and The Love Bug in 1997. Now it's Allen's turn to rule the House of Mouse (or be
ruled by it), and he runs it down ably and with a minimal groan factor (only one reference to butt-sniffing)...and not
one but two silly primates to help add to this madcap menagerie of mayhem! Seriously, is there anything funnier than a
monkey or a chimp in a diaper, except for maybe a monkey or a chimp in a dress (doing a little dance)?

One
thing decidedly un-Disney here is the agenda. Allen's daughter in the movie, played by Zena Grey, is a wannabe animal rights activist, driven to vindicate her
teacher whom she believes was wrongfully jailed for a break-in at a local corporate lab. While they don't come out and
suggest that these animals are being bashed on the head, flayed alive or forced to watch Skating With The Stars, it is a too-simple, cartoonish depiction of the animal rights issue, though in
the case of the scene with the toad with a pug's head, cartoonish is funny (if only a bit unsettling). And speaking of
cartoonish depictions, what the heck is Robert Downey Jr. doing mugging as
a moustache-twirling corporate baddie bent on marketing a fountain of youth formula? He delivered one of the best comic
performances in recent years in 2005's Kiss Kiss
Bang Bang, but here, he has less depth than Snidely Whiplash or Boris Badenov. Ditto for character actor Philip Baker Hall as his boss and a very tired-looking Danny Glover as Allen's boss. They're not exactly "Maybe His Mother
Needed An Operation" roles, but not ones that either would want to retire or die after shooting.

Pop movie anthropologists may want to check out the pair of discs that Disney released this week - the
original The Shaggy Dog, which was released previously in 2004 in a 45th
Anniversary Edition, and the new-to-DVD sequel from 1976, The Shaggy D.A.
(1987's made-for-TV The Return Of The
Shaggy Dog is still MIA, though Gary Kroeger movies are not
exactly big on a lot of wish lists).

The original The Shaggy Dog,
the top-grossing film of 1959 (beating out Ben-Hur during that calendar year), will appease purists, who can enjoy the letterboxed
black-and-white theatrical version, as well as anyone who finds those black bars at the top and bottom of the screen a
nuisance, as the fullscreen colorized version is also on the disc. Granted, the colors are all wrong, simulating what
it is like to be colorblind, and the colorized version is 10 minutes shorter, but hey - pretty! As a light, family
flick and nostalgia kick, the movie is a lot of fun, marking Disney's first foray into live-action comedy (and
incomparably darling Annette Funicello's first movie role). Of the kids in
the movie, Kevin Corcoran, who was also cast as co-star Tommy Kirk's
brother in the 1957 Disney dog tale, Old
Yeller, is the best of the lot. When Kirk turns into a dog, Corcoran acknowledges that he is his brother
(the dogs can talk in this version), and he treats him like the pet he never had, reacting very casually to a situation
that would have grown-ups (like MacMurray) passing out from the shock. The commentary, by Kirk, Corcoran, Tim Considine and Roberta Shore
is enlightening and animated (if a bit saccharine and spotty), and the video tribute to MacMurray is warm and sweet.
Another throwback is the Cold War subplot, in which a
Soviet-friendly neighbor clandestinely plots to derail the U.S. space program (you know he's evil because he speaks
with an accent). You see, Cold War III was almost started by this fat Russian
gangster named 'Nicky the Cruise Ship' when he banged his
shoe on a table...

The Shaggy
D.A. is paler by comparison, but not without its treats. Dean Jones plays Wilby Daniels, a grown-up version of
Tommy Kirk's character in the original. He is now a family man, with a wife (husky-voiced Suzanne Pleshette) and a son (Shane
Sinutko) and with political aspirations to become the next district attorney. He must first unseat the incumbent, a
corrupt do-badder named Slade (played with ham-tastic bravado by Keenan
Wynn). There are talking dogs. Some pies get thrown. Mel from Alice gets his comeuppance. Of course, while Dean Jones might be likeable, Tim Conway, in his last of four 1970's Disney movies, steals the show (the
scene in which he talks gibberish in order to distract a security guard is a riot). The extras on the disc - a couple
of featurettes and a commentary track by Conway, Dick Van Patten and Joanne Worley (now a regular voice for Disney animation) - are nice, though
the movie is just one of many subpar money-grabs to come out of the studio, post-Walt and pre-Eisner. The remake
might be best compared to it, but at least they're both lovable mutts, even if you are more of a That Darn Cat! person.